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of grandparents. Properly. I’d like to build some bridges with you and Papa. But in turn you need to respect that I’m old enough and wise enough to make my own decisions.’

      ‘And your own mistakes?’ the Countess asked coldly.

      ‘Ella isn’t a mistake,’ he said. ‘And neither is my career.’

      ‘So you’re giving me an ultimatum?’

      ‘No. I’m giving you a chance to get to know the woman I love, and our baby,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to happen overnight and we’re all going to have to learn to compromise a bit, but I guess that’s part of what being a real family means.’

      ‘Oliver…’

      ‘I’m on leave at New Year,’ he said. ‘Maybe we could start with lunch. Something small, informal and friendly. Just you, Papa, Ned and Prue and the girls, and us. Nobody else. Just family. You can get to know Ella a bit better—and we’ll take it from there.’

      ‘Just family, New Year,’ the Countess echoed.

      ‘A new year and a new beginning,’ he said softly.

      For a long time, she said nothing, and he thought she was going to throw it all back in his face.

      But then she sighed. ‘All right.’

      ‘Good. I’ll speak to you soon,’ he said.

      But, more importantly, he needed to talk to Ella. To apologise for ever having doubted her. He wasn’t going to take her an armful of flowers—apart from the fact that there was a ban on flowers while the vomiting bug was still around, flowers weren’t going to fix things. The only way to fix things was by total honesty.

      He just hoped that she’d hear him out.

      When he went back onto the ward, Annabelle was there. ‘Which room is Ella in?’ he asked.

      ‘I’m not entirely sure I should tell you,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at him. ‘At the moment, Oliver Darrington, I’d quite like to shake you until your teeth rattle.’

      He blinked, not used to his head nurse being so fierce. ‘What have I done?’

      She scoffed. ‘Are you really that dense? You made Ella cry.’

      He winced. ‘I need to talk to her.’

      ‘You need,’ Annabelle said crisply, ‘to grovel.’

      ‘That, too,’ he said.

      ‘She’s in here.’ Annabelle indicated the side room. ‘But if you make her cry any more, I’ll throw you out personally, and I don’t care if you’re the Assistant Head of Obstetrics.’

      ‘You won’t have to do that,’ Oliver said.

      ‘Hmm,’ Annabelle said, and watched him as he walked into the room.

      He closed the door behind him, noting that Ella was in tears.

      ‘Hey,’ he said softly.

      She looked at him and scrubbed at her eyes with the back of one hand. ‘What do you want?’

      ‘To talk. To apologise.’ He paused. ‘Annabelle says I need to grovel.’

      Ella’s face was tight. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

      ‘Why are you crying?’

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she repeated.

      ‘Yes, it does,’ he said. ‘Are you crying because I walked out?’

      She didn’t answer.

      ‘Because, earlier,’ he said, ‘you seemed to think that me walking out on you would make you happy. What do you want, Ella?’

      ‘Something you can’t give me,’ she said. ‘You don’t do relationships. I was stupid to think that maybe I could change your mind on that score, especially now I know why you don’t date anyone more than twice.’

      ‘But that’s what I want, too,’ he said, coming to sit beside her. ‘I want a proper relationship. I want to be a proper family. With you.’

      ‘Your family will never accept me,’ she said. ‘Your brother and Prue are nice, but your mum hates me and your dad despises me, so it’s never going to work. It’s just going to cause endless rows between you and them, and that’s going to make things difficult between you and me.’

      ‘My parents,’ he said, ‘are difficult, but they’re going to learn to change. And I’m sorry that my mother harangued you outside the bathroom and said I’d insist on custody after a paternity test.’

      She frowned. ‘But you said she wouldn’t say things like that.’

      ‘I didn’t want to think she’d say it,’ he said, ‘but what you said rang pretty true. Oh, and she’s sorry, by the way.’

      Ella stared at him, looking surprised. ‘You’ve spoken to your mother?’

      ‘Technically, she rang me,’ he said. ‘So I asked her about what she’d said to you. And I told her very bluntly that you’re the mother of my child and the baby stays with you.’

      ‘So you’re not going to sue me for custody?’

      ‘I was rather hoping,’ he said, ‘that we could do better than that. That we could be a family.’

      She shook her head. ‘I’m not marrying you for the baby’s sake, Oliver. That won’t work, either. We’ll end up resenting each other and it won’t be good for the baby.’

      ‘That isn’t why I asked you, actually,’ he said. ‘I asked you because I want to marry you for you. Because I love you.’

      She scoffed. ‘We had a one-night stand with consequences neither of us was expecting. That’s not love, Oliver.’

      ‘Agreed, but that’s got nothing to do with it. I’ve known you for eighteen months,’ he said. ‘The first moment I saw you, I noticed you. That glorious hair, those beautiful eyes, and a mouth that made my knees weak.’

      She looked stunned.

      ‘And then I got to know this bright, warm midwife who’s a joy to work with,’ Oliver continued. ‘She’s great with the mums and makes them all feel a million times better when they’re panicking, she’s great at explaining things to our trainees and gives them confidence when they don’t think they can do things, and she thinks on her feet so she can second-guess what senior staff need, too—and I admit, that’s why I didn’t ask you out months ago, because I know I’m rubbish at relationships and I didn’t want to mess up things at work. But then it was the night of the ball—and yes, I’m shallow, because it’s the first time I saw you all dressed up and I couldn’t think straight. Especially when I danced with you. I wanted to go and reclaim you from every other guy you danced with,’ he told her.

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Really,’ he confirmed. ‘I couldn’t resist you. And then it got complicated, because I realised what I’d done, and I’d messed everything up, and I didn’t know how to make things right between us again.’

      ‘And then I told you about the baby—and that must’ve brought back memories of Justine,’ she said quietly.

      ‘It did, though I never doubted you for a second and I don’t want you to do a paternity test. The night of the party, when you made me feel you really believed in me and supported me—I’ve never had that from anyone before. It threw me. And it made me realise that maybe you were the one I could trust with my heart. Except then you started avoiding me, and when I asked you to marry me you said no.’

      ‘Because you never said a word about your feelings,’ she said. ‘I thought you were asking me to marry you out of duty, just because you thought it was the right thing to do. You said we got on well and we could give the baby

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